The Family

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By the bestselling author of The Godfather. Alexander moved over to his favourite chair in the corner of the large chamber. 'Sit, my children, sit with me,' he gently ordered them...'We are a family,' he told his children. 'And the loyalty of the family must come before everything and everyone else. We must learn from each other, protect each ...Read MoreBy the bestselling author of The Godfather. Alexander moved over to his favourite chair in the corner of the large chamber. 'Sit, my children, sit with me,' he gently ordered them...'We are a family,' he told his children. 'And the loyalty of the family must come before everything and everyone else. We must learn from each other, protect each other, and be bound first and foremost to each other. For if we honour that commitment, we will never be vanquished - but if we falter in that loyalty, we will all be condemned...' What is a family? Mario Puzo first answered that question, unforgettably, in his landmark bestseller The Godfather; with the creation of the Corleones he forever redefined the concept of blood loyalty. Now, thirty years later, Puzo enriches us all with his ultimate vision of the subject, in a masterpiece that crowns his remarkable career: the story of the greatest crime family in Italian history -- the Borgias. In The Family, this singular novelist transports his readers back to fifteenth-century Rome and reveals the extravagance and intrigue of the Vatican as surely as he once revealed the secrets of the Mafia. Their intermingled stories constitute a symphony of human emotion and behaviour, from pride to romance to jealousy to betrayal and murderous rage. And their time, place, and characters are recaptured in all their earthy, human grandeur, with the unerring insight and compassion that were Mario Puzo's great gifts.Read Less

Very good. Appearance of only slight previous use. Cover and binding show a little wear. All pages are undamaged with potentially only a few, small markings. Help save a tree. Buy all your used books from Thriftbooks. Read. Recycle and Reuse.

Very good. Appearance of only slight previous use. Cover and binding show a little wear. All pages are undamaged with potentially only a few, small markings. Help save a tree. Buy all your used books from Thriftbooks. Read. Recycle and Reuse.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly, 2001-07-30Before his death in 2001, Puzo (The Last Don) had begun work on a novel featuring the 15th-century Borgias, whom he regarded as "the original crime family." There are obvious parallels between the Borgias and the Corleone clan immortalized in The Godfather, but the resemblances are mostly superficial, at least as they are presented in this limp historical romance. The story opens with Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia manipulating papal elections in 1492 to become the new Pope Alexander. Determined to establish a family dynasty, he appoints his son Cesare cardinal in his stead and, after a strategically engineered episode of incest between siblings Cesare and Lucrezia, begins ruthlessly eliminating rivals and marrying his children into alliances with the offspring of noble families of France and Spain. But Cesare would rather be a soldier, and Lucrezia would rather marry for love; these conflicted desires contribute as much as risky political power plays to undoing the Borgias in a single generation. Though Gino (Puzo's companion, author of Then an Angel Came) is credited for the posthumous completion, Puzo's true collaborator is history, and it proves a difficult partner. Obligated not to deviate from known facts, the narrative whizzes methodically through highlights of the Renaissance, embellishing events with snatches of imagined dialogue, purple prose ("For love can steal free will using no weapons but itself") and cameos by Machiavelli, Michelangelo and da Vinci. Overwhelmed by the vast pageant of events, the characters never achieve dramatic stature. Puzo's diehard fans will surely put the novel on their summer hit list, but they may feel, in Sonny Corleone's words, that "this isn't personal, it's business." Major ad/promo; simultaneous HarperAudio and Large Print edition.(Oct. 2) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

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